The Cock and the Early Church

Christianity arrived in Rome as just another cult from the East and in its early years was inauspicious, with adherents worshipping in relative privacy without recognised meeting places they could call their own. The Roman world was full of gods. City states had their own gods who were thought to provide defence and ensure prosperity. Personal and civic gods involved the use of various methods of divination, the study of astrology, the use of charms and amulets, and recourse to the predictions of oracles and soothsayers. The rich built temples at their own expense. Such was the proliferation, ‘The religions of the Graeco-Roman world were able to absorb new gods and goddesses in a spirit of openness and tolerance’. However, Christianity was different from other religions. While other gods could be gods of small things, the Christian God was God of all things. While other gods co-existed, the Christian God was a jealous God, He refused to acknowledge pagan gods; there could be no other god but Him. Uniquely, He offered believers something no other god could offer—resurrection in the next world. The number of adherents slowly grew and there were times when Christians lived in harmony with their pagan neighbours, interspersed with periods when they were the victims of violent persecution. Among the victims was St Peter, who, according to a tradition that is open to doubt, asked to be crucified upside down because he thought himself unworthy to be put to death in the same way as his master.